Ramadan started on Monday. Around here there are many nominal Mohammedans who ignore every inconvenient rule of their religion throughout the year yet feel compelled to keep to some of them for a spell of thirty-ish days. I have been investigating the matter in depth using my usual statistically significant technique of having a chat with shop staff while taking a ciggy outside their premises and with waiters while taking a nourishing exotic repast.
What is obvious beyond argument is that there are few who observe Ramadan strictly. I have heard all sorts of excuses, such as (I paraphrase): "I can't fast today because the shop is short of staff and I need to do the work of two people", "I can't avoid fornication today because my girlfriend is English and she'll get it elsewhere if I don't perform", "I can't refuse alcohol today because Mr Miggins is our best customer and he might go elsewhere if I don't have a drink with him." It's all very dog-ate-my-homework stuff. Others claim to be observant whilst cheating blatantly - one local shopkeeper has the owner of adjoining premises keep his water bottle in the fridge, it is a strange water bottle being made of dark glass and housing scotch and cola. Water is allowed, so he pops next door regularly for rehydration.
It has always mystified me how some supposedly religious people feel free to pick and choose the religious rules they are willing to obey. Either they are rules or they are not, either you believe in observing them or you do not. Believing you really must obey the rules for a month or so but may ignore them the rest of the time (until the next period of piety arrives) makes little sense to me. In the good old days of Woolworths I can certainly understand that those who did not like the peanut cracknel would not put any in their bag at the pick-n-mix counter, but we're talking immutable rules of behaviour laid down by a superior force to which no exceptions are allowed. How can people be utterly indifferent to those rules for most of the year and feel it necessary to create excuses for breaking them during a particular period?
The answer seems obvious. Their perceived duty to comply during Ramadan is cultural not religious. No doubt they think it is religious but in reality it isn't. Let me give a real example of someone I know well enough to be able to explain both how he acts and what he says he believes. On coming to London a couple of years ago drinking, smoking and fornication were no part of his life. He had been brought up in a Moslem household and held to the standards of personal behaviour his parents instilled in him. Once here, attending a language school, the college organised outings and provided tickets giving free entry to night clubs and other places of entertainment. It also provided mixed-sex classes including young ladies from all over the world who were not shy of disclosing their assets and their desire to have them explored by classmates. Within weeks he was smoking tobacco regularly, attending clubs and drooling over female flesh exposed in a way unknown in his home country. And he liked it. In order to see rather more flesh he had to buy drinks and, not surprisingly, felt it only polite to take a small beverage himself. Now he drinks regularly and has many notches on his bedpost. He is fasting this Ramadan, avoiding alcohol even outside the hours of daylight and keeping his overused organ in his trousers. He claims he is doing it for religious reasons.
On being questioned why he breaks the rules the rest of the year but feels it necessary to comply now, he says it is such a heavy sacrifice compared to those who have never "sinned" that time of abstinence is a more devout act than for those who know not of the wicked ways of the western world. That is no answer because the rules is the rules and the rules say "Thou shalt not" they do not say "Thou shalt not unless Thou doest in which case Thou shalt not during Ramadan only". He acknowledges readily that there is a single indivisible set of rules and that he chooses which to obey and which to ignore and when. Yet he is adamant that he must keep Ramadan because that is how he was brought up and it is important to him to maintain that link with his home country and, in particular, with the ways of his late father. What he describes is not a religious observance at all but one of culture - national culture and family culture. I have described it as such to him and he does not disagree, yet he prefers to say it is also religious because that is how he perceives it. Fair enough.
I also know one of his chums from his home town. Were he inclined to fast during this Ramadan he might not be able to take the medicines prescribed by the clap clinic following an encounter with a large-breasted Polish woman a couple of weeks ago, but he is not fasting. His visa is about to expire so he's making the most of his last few weeks in London. When asked how the lifestyle he has in London can be justified according to his religion he said, and I quote: "I don't hurt anyone, I just enjoy myself". I doubt there can be a better analysis of the absurdity of religious rules about what we consume and how we excercise our other bodily needs, they are utterly pointless compared to conducting ourselves in a way that does not harm other people. A rapist is a rapist regardless of whether he likes a bacon butty.
The chum is not fasting, as he put it with a heavy Turkish accent "I do not fast". I suggested he should say "I slow." I'm all for slowing for Ramadan.
(Amended after being alerted to an error about the length of Ramadan this year.)
What is obvious beyond argument is that there are few who observe Ramadan strictly. I have heard all sorts of excuses, such as (I paraphrase): "I can't fast today because the shop is short of staff and I need to do the work of two people", "I can't avoid fornication today because my girlfriend is English and she'll get it elsewhere if I don't perform", "I can't refuse alcohol today because Mr Miggins is our best customer and he might go elsewhere if I don't have a drink with him." It's all very dog-ate-my-homework stuff. Others claim to be observant whilst cheating blatantly - one local shopkeeper has the owner of adjoining premises keep his water bottle in the fridge, it is a strange water bottle being made of dark glass and housing scotch and cola. Water is allowed, so he pops next door regularly for rehydration.
It has always mystified me how some supposedly religious people feel free to pick and choose the religious rules they are willing to obey. Either they are rules or they are not, either you believe in observing them or you do not. Believing you really must obey the rules for a month or so but may ignore them the rest of the time (until the next period of piety arrives) makes little sense to me. In the good old days of Woolworths I can certainly understand that those who did not like the peanut cracknel would not put any in their bag at the pick-n-mix counter, but we're talking immutable rules of behaviour laid down by a superior force to which no exceptions are allowed. How can people be utterly indifferent to those rules for most of the year and feel it necessary to create excuses for breaking them during a particular period?
The answer seems obvious. Their perceived duty to comply during Ramadan is cultural not religious. No doubt they think it is religious but in reality it isn't. Let me give a real example of someone I know well enough to be able to explain both how he acts and what he says he believes. On coming to London a couple of years ago drinking, smoking and fornication were no part of his life. He had been brought up in a Moslem household and held to the standards of personal behaviour his parents instilled in him. Once here, attending a language school, the college organised outings and provided tickets giving free entry to night clubs and other places of entertainment. It also provided mixed-sex classes including young ladies from all over the world who were not shy of disclosing their assets and their desire to have them explored by classmates. Within weeks he was smoking tobacco regularly, attending clubs and drooling over female flesh exposed in a way unknown in his home country. And he liked it. In order to see rather more flesh he had to buy drinks and, not surprisingly, felt it only polite to take a small beverage himself. Now he drinks regularly and has many notches on his bedpost. He is fasting this Ramadan, avoiding alcohol even outside the hours of daylight and keeping his overused organ in his trousers. He claims he is doing it for religious reasons.
On being questioned why he breaks the rules the rest of the year but feels it necessary to comply now, he says it is such a heavy sacrifice compared to those who have never "sinned" that time of abstinence is a more devout act than for those who know not of the wicked ways of the western world. That is no answer because the rules is the rules and the rules say "Thou shalt not" they do not say "Thou shalt not unless Thou doest in which case Thou shalt not during Ramadan only". He acknowledges readily that there is a single indivisible set of rules and that he chooses which to obey and which to ignore and when. Yet he is adamant that he must keep Ramadan because that is how he was brought up and it is important to him to maintain that link with his home country and, in particular, with the ways of his late father. What he describes is not a religious observance at all but one of culture - national culture and family culture. I have described it as such to him and he does not disagree, yet he prefers to say it is also religious because that is how he perceives it. Fair enough.
I also know one of his chums from his home town. Were he inclined to fast during this Ramadan he might not be able to take the medicines prescribed by the clap clinic following an encounter with a large-breasted Polish woman a couple of weeks ago, but he is not fasting. His visa is about to expire so he's making the most of his last few weeks in London. When asked how the lifestyle he has in London can be justified according to his religion he said, and I quote: "I don't hurt anyone, I just enjoy myself". I doubt there can be a better analysis of the absurdity of religious rules about what we consume and how we excercise our other bodily needs, they are utterly pointless compared to conducting ourselves in a way that does not harm other people. A rapist is a rapist regardless of whether he likes a bacon butty.
The chum is not fasting, as he put it with a heavy Turkish accent "I do not fast". I suggested he should say "I slow." I'm all for slowing for Ramadan.
(Amended after being alerted to an error about the length of Ramadan this year.)
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4 comments:
"It has always mystified me how some supposedly religious people feel free to pick and choose the religious rules they are willing to obey."
At least the Catholic Church had the good sense to turn that proclivity into a money-maker by selling indulgences. The Muslims could take a lesson there.
Ramadan is only 28 days, the same as all of the islamic months, being lunar based.
(I learnt something from my 12 (European) months of mercenary penance in Saudi)
Welcome Mr Shades. I was sure someone told me forty days. Now you tell me 28. So I checked using the interweb - a very useful tool.
Apparently it is either 30 or 31 days this year, depending on which interwebby site one peruses. I have amended my post accordingly.
Ramazan is either 29 days or 30 days depending on site of moon.
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